Renewal 9 - Delay Tactics

Renewal #9

by J.F. Perkins

The Knights of the White God are on the move, driven to Coffee County by vengeance, where they have every intention of delivering their own twisted justice to Bill Carter and his community. Fortunately for Bill, horse-mounted friends in Bedford County are prepared to spring some ugly surprises that will likely lead to horse drawn nightmares for a very long time. The Carter family, relieved of the most urgent threat, begins to prepare for long term survival and the changes that come with a new phase of existence.

Genres: Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Dystopia

Nook

First published September 6, 2011

About the author

I was born two years before we landed on the moon, somewhere in the middle of Long Island. I was too young to remember much, except for the park ritual of spinning three times on a stump, the bee that flew down my throat, and getting my fingernails smashed off in a car door. Ok, that's not fair. I also remember when the mean kid across the street was run over by the mailman.

I currently live in Olympia, Washington with my fantastic wife, Sharon, five dogs (Hunter, Hope, Elke, Jay, and Luna - Queen of the Lunaverse), and two cats (Donner - loves everyone, Jenny - rarely leaves the bedroom closet). Whew! That was a mouthful. I'm a digital artist by trade, woodworker by hobby, gardener by spousal association, and dog trainer by hard necessity.

Reviews

[Dollie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bill tells Terry about Sally’s neighbor, Joe Miller, an old man who gives them all his animals because he’s no longer able to care for them all and about how he celebrated his 13th birthday, when Aggie gave him his first real kiss. There’s also a blow-by-blow description of how a neighboring leader near Teeny Town, Tam Rogers, set up all kinds of ways to delay Gary Tucker, Jr. and his Knights of the White God army from getting into Coffee County, one of which was to saw up a bridge so that it would fall into a river when all the trucks got on it. She and her group of horse riders did a real fine job. Lots of men were killed and trucks were disabled, but there were a lot of Knights that got away. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize they were running away toward Cannibal Town.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

To start off, this is not a full-length book but the second of a ten-part series of short stories: it will take you less than an hour to read this one as well as for each of the ten other stories. If you haven't read the first book of the series (Renewal without any of the numbers after it), you need to read that one first then progress in numerical order through #10.

Book 8 really kicked it up and gave you a lot of action, and the author doesn't stop with book 9 and continues does a good job of sucking you into it and feeling as if you are really there in the middle of it. You can really see an improvement in the plot and character development of the author with this one.

Similar to the other books in the series, the author sets you into a futuristic (and believable) outlook of America several decades after a nuclear destruction of organized society, with frequent flashbacks / narrations of what happened immediately after to the surviving families. I could actually visualize the various scenes and situations, and found myself wondering "what if" or "what would I do" while reading not only this one, but the other stories in the series. The author does a good job of wetting your tastebuds and wanting a little more at the conclusion of the story - hence, let's go purchase the next book of the series. Overall, the series is very good and I highly recommend it.

I will point out I did read all ten of the stories of the series one right after the other as the series is good: while good, it was a little annoying to having just strapped myself in to read for a while then finding the various stories ended and I had to go buy another.

[Felicia A Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great world-building and awesome dual storyline in this post-apocalyptic/renewal & rebuilding type of book.

It's about 35 years after the "Breakdown" (nuclear missiles worldwide, all hell broke loose, etc., etc., etc.). Since the nukes headed for the US were detonated in space, there is little bomb damage or fallout (not really believable, but it's not a big plot hole). The struggling survivors have slapdash governments and plans and such, but life pretty much sucks. A good group has an amazing town and life, but they keep hidden for obvious reasons. The protagonist stumbles onto it, and the backstory is great.

Big major problem is that this is probably only novella length, which is personally very annoying, and in order to make it great, probably 3 or 4 of the novellas in the continuing series need to be combined into one book each, and could make a great sequel or trilogy, depending on how far the author intends to take the series.

I sat for the last two days and read the remaining consecutive books in this outstanding series. LOVED the series, but hate the novellas. They need to be combined into one fantastic book.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

All eight books have seamlessly flowed, like one book. Until now, for some reason JF Perkins thinks that people reading Renewal 9 might not have looked for 1-8 and we need a refresher. Very confusing when you add the two timeliness we already had. Also frustrating for someone that has stuck with the story from the beginning. This book doesn't have the magic that the others did. So far.
After JF Perkins got done reminding the reader what happened in previous books, the magic came back.

[David Galloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of my comments on the Renewal series can be found in the first installment of the story.